


The Strange and Unusual

by EvalynnMesserli



Category: Beetlejuice - Perfect/Brown & King
Genre: Angst, Brother-Sister Relationships, Domestic, Family Feels, Father-Son Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Found Family, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mental Health Issues, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Child Abuse, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:15:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25142995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvalynnMesserli/pseuds/EvalynnMesserli
Summary: Lydia misses Beetlejuice. Even after everything, she wants him back in her life, even if it’s just to get answers for why he did what he did. However, things end up more complicated than she planned when Beetlejuice’s past comes up and a new stranger arrives in town, seeming to know more about the dead than he lets on.
Relationships: Adam Maitland/Barbara Maitland, Beetlejuice & Charles Deetz & Delia Deetz & Lydia Deetz & Adam Maitland & Barbara Maitland, Beetlejuice & Lydia Deetz, Beetlejuice (Beetlejuice) & Original Character(s), Charles Deetz/Delia Deetz, others
Comments: 5
Kudos: 27





	The Strange and Unusual

**Author's Note:**

> So I know there are already several post-canon fics like this out there, but I wanted to give it my own shot so here we are. Several ideas, mainly those surrounding Beetlejuice’s parents, were inspired by and based on some of @cirilee on tumblr’s stuff so go check that out, it’s all really good.

_ Rigel _

_ Rigel, designated β Orionis, is a blue supergiant star in the constellation of Orion, approximately 860 light-years from Earth. Rigel is the brightest and most massive component—and the eponym—of a star system of at least four stars that appear as a single blue-white point of light to the naked eye. _

_ Betelgeuse  _

_ Betelgeuse is usually the tenth-brightest star in the night sky and, after Rigel, the second-brightest in the constellation of Orion. It is a distinctly reddish semiregular variable star whose apparent magnitude, varying between +0.0 and +1.6, has the widest range displayed by any first-magnitude star. _

~~~~~~~~~

Lydia was flying.

Well, not actually flying, but it sure felt like it. She was being tossed into the air over and over by Beetlejuice and his clones as if she weighed nothing. Giggles erupted from her mouth as she was effortlessly swung and spun around. It had been forever since she’d felt this happy or had this much fun. Here she was haunting her very own genuine haunted house, laughing as she danced and sang with her BFFFF Forever and his duplicates in between scaring the living daylights out of those they got to come over. Dead Mom would have loved this.

The thought had the room shattering around her as she was suddenly in the Netherworld, running through the void as she frantically searched for her mother.

You wanted me gone.

Beetlejuice’s gravelly voice rang out around her, echoing into the nothingness.

You wanted your mom.

She didn’t get it. Tears streamed down her face as she was reminded of his betrayal. His hair a violent red, almost looking like fire as he snarled, his face twisted in an inhuman way as his voice seemed to distort as he growled his next words.

You messed with the wrong book now  _ look what you’ve done. _

Next thing she knew Lydia was dressed in that stupid red wedding dress as she and her family danced around Beetlejuice in order to distract him from thinking too hard about the situation.

He looked confused and overwhelmed, but happy at the same time. He was grinning and laughing and his newly-shortened hair had a hint of bright, vibrant green here and there. Completely unaware of what was going to happen. 

Lydia woke up crying when she shoved the pole through his chest.

Her eyes scanned her dark room in a panic, finding nothing out of the ordinary. No warped furniture or striped walls or any sign that Beetlejuice had been there just a few months before. 

She had this dream often and sometimes Lydia could trick her brain into thinking that it was all just a dream, that he was just a dream, and go back to sleep. Most of the time she couldn’t though, her guilt and anger swelling up alongside sadness. Consuming her until she couldn’t sleep.

Taking a deep breath Lydia wiped her tears away and scooted towards the edge of her bed before standing and grabbing her phone. She turned on her flashlight as she quietly made her way over to her door, trying to be as silent as possible as she quickly opened it and made her way downstairs.

The floorboards creaked ever so slightly as she tiptoed to the front door, reminding her of how the Maitlands had died. Luckily the floor had been reinforced since then, but she still caught herself thinking about it from time to time. The permanent bruises and cracks on her ghost parents’ heads reminded her a lot.

Lydia glanced around the living and dining rooms as she got to the door, not wanting anyone to see what she was doing. When she saw no one, she knelt and turned her attention to the door frame, shining her flashlight along the frame until she found what she was looking for.

She couldn’t help but smile at the names scratched into the wood. Or rather, her name and a crude image of a beetle and a glass of juice joined together by a plus sign. When she and Beetlejuice had taken over the house, he’d told her that they needed to leave their mark. At the time, she’d simply gestured to the warped decor he had conjured up and asked how that wasn’t a mark. He’d shaken his head and told her stuff like that was all temporary. It was easy to get bored and want to change it. They needed a more permanent mark.

He’d grabbed a knife from the kitchen and casually started carving into the wood of the door frame, one of the few things he hadn’t drastically altered. Lydia had instinctively protested before she was reminded that it was their house now. In other words, they could do what they wanted. She’d happily carved her name in right under his hieroglyphs. 

He’d ended up being right. Everything else from his time in the house that was physical had been removed. Their little carving was the only thing that remained, though Lydia honestly didn’t know why. With all the renovations she had been sure it would go along with everything else. Yet day after day it remained.

Sometimes, when they’d gone a long time without talking about him and the lack of evidence that he’d existed, Lydia worried that she had simply imagined Beetlejuice. That he had been nothing more than something her brain conjured up to cope with the grief of losing her mom. Whenever that happened, she would sneak down to see the carving. To remind herself he was real.

She also came down to look at it if she was feeling lonely or if she had that nightmare and couldn’t sleep after. It was soothing and reminded her of those three days of happiness in what at the time was a sea of darkness and depression.

Lydia missed him, even though she knew she shouldn’t after what he did. He’d tried to exorcise Barbara to force Lydia into marrying him and threatened to kill everyone. Even if the marriage was a green card thing like he’d insisted, she should hate him and be glad he’s gone like everyone else. Yet, she didn’t. Despite everything, she missed Beetlejuice and the fun they’d had together in their haunted house. Missed his weird quirks and the happiness he’d brought her. He was the first person to really truly make her feel seen since her mom had died, even more than the Maitlands.

It’s why his sudden betrayal hurt so much. She’d thought they were on the same page and that he would stand by her. Yeah, he hadn’t agreed to help her bring her mom back, but she hadn’t seen that as a deal breaker for their friendship. She’d been annoyed, yeah, but not really that upset. Besides, after meeting his mom she could tell he had serious mommy issues so she could see why he said no to helping her. What she couldn’t see or understand is why he suddenly flipped out on her. They’d spent three days basically alone in the house together and he hadn’t mentioned wanting to marry her or coming to life once. It only happened after her dad and Delia came to try and exorcise him.

Maybe that was it? He thought she was working with her parents to get rid of him and decided to make it to where they couldn’t? But that didn’t explain why he’d think that as she had been clearly against her dad coming around. Not to mention that he’d seemed angry that she wanted her mom so badly, like she had thrown him away in favor of getting her back. Was that it? But she never said anything like that. She’d been excited to see her mom again and introduce her to her new demon friend and had never even hinted at wanting Beetlejuice gone.

He was confusing and Lydia wanted to know what had made him go all red and crazy. She had been mad at him at first, of course, but tricking someone by using their insecurities against them and then quite literally stabbing them in the back to murder them and have them save her and her family from their psycho mom made the anger hard to keep hold of. Not to mention that he had stopped her from committing suicide back when they first met. She couldn’t be mad, not anymore. And honestly, she just wanted answers and an apology. Nothing more.

She could easily bring him back. All she would have to do is say his name three times and she could try to get everything she wanted from him. She’d been tempted to more times than she could count, and yet she never did it. First off her family would freak out if she even breathed a word about summoning him, and second, he’d said he was going on a vision quest to find his dad. She didn’t want to take that from him. She’d already taken away his chance at living again. No matter how often she was told she was justified for it, she still felt guilty.

Running her fingers fondly over the messily carved beetle, Lydia stared out into the sleeping and silent house. She really did miss her self-proclaimed BFFFF Forever.

“Beetlejuice.” The word left her mouth before she could stop it. Lydia froze, glancing around like she was expecting something to change to signal what she was doing. Nothing did. Everything stayed the same.

Lydia took a deep breath. “Beetlejuice.” This time, the air stilled, suddenly charged with electricity. The whole house seemed to be holding its breath, waiting for her to finish.

She couldn’t do it though, whispering a quick “I’m sorry” to break up the summoning, the tension vanishing as quickly as it came. It was so easy and yet she knew now was not the time to ask Beetlejuice to come. Not now at least, but soon. She at least needed to talk to her family about it first.

Lydia didn’t know how long she spent down there, lost in the memories of her best friend, but when she finally did head back to bed her mind was full of plans on how to let her see Beetlejuice at least one last time.

~~~~~~~~~

Rigel wasn’t supposed to get any news on what was going on in the Netherworld. He’d encountered plenty of guides and demons over the years, but they were all too afraid of Juno to tell him anything other than that everything was continuing on as usual, which was not what he wanted to hear. He didn’t care how smoothly things were going. There was only one thing he cared about and everyone was either forbidden to help him or had no idea what he was even asking about.

But something had happened. He didn’t have the full details, just that Juno was out of commission for a little while and those he encountered were more willing to talk and share things that could maybe help him. They still didn’t dare assist him directly, but he knew what that one guide had been doing when she told him about the two living people who had entered the Netherworld and got out alive. Another had mentioned a place called Winter River and Rigel had packed up immediately.

Living people going to the Netherworld wasn’t anything new. Accidents happened and occasionally someone wandered in through a door now and again. The weird thing about this case was that it was two people who had gone in and hadn’t been killed. Two people who had escaped with their lives. Two people who might be able to help him.

Rigel’s hands shook as he gripped the steering wheel of his car, just barely not going over the speed limit despite how badly he wanted to floor it all the way to Connecticut. He knew nothing of these two people other than that they lived in Winter River. He hadn’t been able to get names or an address or anything, but for the first time in several centuries, he had actual hope again. He’d given up and now he was so close to maybe getting the one thing he’s wanted more than anything else in the last millennia. The one thing he’d spent the entirety of his cursed existence in the Upperworld trying to do.

He was so close to finally getting to meet his child.


End file.
